LAHORE: A family has approached the Lahore High Court with a request to set aside the decision of a lower court that ordered its eviction from an inherited property.

Justice Raheel Kamran Sheikh will hear on Friday the petition filed by Asif Masih and other members of the family.

The petitioners state their father Saleem Masih bought an 11-marla house in mauza Kot Kamboh, Lahore, in 1986 from Muhammad Younas by way of a sale deed and they have been living in the house from the day first. They contend that after the lapse of 19 years, Rashida Bibi, one of the legal heirs of Younas, got an inheritance mutation and a surrender deed in her favour in 2005.

In December 2018, Rashida Bibi moved an ejectment petition before the rent judge of Lahore on the basis of a forged rent agreement about the petitioners’ property mentioning her as the landlady with a fake tenant Abdul Rehman, who as per his identity card was a resident of Sodiwal, Lahore.

The petitioners challenged the order of the rent judge before a civil court in which status quo was maintained. Later, they filed an application before the rent judge asking him to take them as an aggrieved party in the case but the same was dismissed on technical grounds.

The petitioners argue the fake tenant admitted before the court that the rent agreement was bogus as he had neither signed any such document nor lived for a single day in the property in question. The bogus tenant also had a criminal record as he was arrested in a drug case.

However, the rent judge allowed the ejectment petition on the basis of a forged rent agreement and the petitioners were ordered to vacate the property. An appeal by the Christian family filed before the sessions court was also dismissed. The petitioners asked the LHC to set aside the order of the dispossession for being a violation of the fundamental rights.

Published in Dawn, July 9th, 2021